Loyalists and loyalism in a southern Irish community, 1921– 22 (pre-published version)

Abstract

A second Irish Grants Committee met for the first time in October 1926 to deal with claims for compensation from distressed southern Irish loyalists. By the time it had ceased its work, the committee had dealt with over 4,000 applications and recommended 2,237 ex-gratia grants. The surviving files constitute over 200 boxes of near-contemporary witness testimony and supplementary material making them an incomparable, if problematic, source for the study of the southern loyalist experience of the Irish Revolution – a topic of much current historiographical interest. Applicants had to prove that they had suffered loss on account of their ‘allegiance to the government of the United Kingdom’, and by applying labelled themselves as both ‘loyalist’ and ‘victim’. A study of the claim files from one district, Arva in County Cavan, offers unique perspectives on the loyalist experience of revolution in a southern Irish community, personal definitions of loyalty, and the relationship between behaviour and allegiance during war. The Arva applicants often struggled to present their financial losses as resulting directly from their ‘loyalty to the Crown’. Their statements, and the way they were treated by the committee, serve to complicate an often over-simplified understanding of civilian behaviour and popular support.